


Imprint the Stars To Remember the Sky

by Zagzagael



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 09:58:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2464154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zagzagael/pseuds/Zagzagael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's about time, and seasons, and being fetched home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imprint the Stars To Remember the Sky

The impossibly long, intensely black, vintage 1969 suicide-doored Lincoln Continental crawled past the club, slowing, and then pulling to the side of the road, down a ways from where she sat.

Swaying, perched on the curb of the sidewalk, black Christian Louboutins in the gutter, knees kissing one another, her head down. Hair hanging almost to the dirty cement, tangled and tousled, sweat-dried from hours of dancing. She was wearing the requisite black mini dress, the studied casual elegance with which the neckline fell from both her shoulders exposing the thin white balls as though bone through torn, dried hide.

He ached seeing this. Desired nothing more than to squat down just behind her, wrap her in his arms, lift her hair by the great spilling handfuls and put his mouth at the nape of her neck, swirl his tongue around the fragile cervical vertebrae and follow each spinous process to the jutting wing of one scapula.

All of this in the moment in which he studied her in the rearview mirror, before slanting his gaze sideways where he caught her in the reflection of the passenger door sideview. The small oval world in which she reigned supreme, the silver glass with the girl inside. It had been months of endless waiting, an eternity since he had last seen her anywhere outside his damp dreams. He sighed and keyed off the 365 horses. He squinted, listening to the phantom steeds stamp and snort in impatient annoyance. They wanted to run wide open on the midnight freeway.

He climbed out of the car, pale-skinned, tall and lean, dressed in black on black. Hugo two-piece suit, black wingtips, black silk button-down. His hair a longish uncombed furiosity. He tossed his head but the swale of fringe fell back across his forehead, obscuring one of his eyes. He began walking towards her.

The night air crisply cool, autumn weaving its fingers through her sun-bleached hair of summertime days. Her girls were gathered behind her, the small meadow flowers celebrating the glorious bloom. A few turned their faces away from his approach, one or two leveled accusatory stares, but he ignored them. He remained in the street, stopping to stand just in front of her, looking down at the top of her head. He reached into the pocket of his suit coat for a pack of cigarettes.

With his weight on one hip, smoking nonchalantly, he looked up above at the stars barely visible through the raiment of filthy sky. He sighed. The disappointment of the obscuration a pain in the twisting of his intestines.

Without raising her head, she asked him, “Is it time then?”

He nodded, but cleared his throat and spoke, all gravel-quarry voice. “It is." He popped one of his cuffs and clocked the faceless watch on his wrist. "We need to go. Unless you intend to be ill again. I would prefer that not to happen inside the car.”

She lifted her head at this, wiping at her lips with the back of one hand. “I don’t feel so good.”

“No?”

It was killing him to not toss the cigarette, reach down and scoop her into his arms and flee. But there was a pretense here she longed for on a level that he did not understand. It amused her and he deeply wanted her to be happy, so he conceded and played along. It was an indulgence.

“Drink? Drugs? Please tell me it’s not,” he breathed out, two long columns of grey smoke pouring out each nostril, “a pregnancy.”

Now she pulled a face. “As if.” She quirked a flirtatious eyebrow at him, looking up at him through the impossibly thick lashes. “A bad fish taco.”

He nearly smiled at this. But reached her down the pack of Marlboro Blacks and the Zippo. She waved him off and one of her girls quickly knelt beside her, exquisitely manicured fingers on her slender upper arm, and fished a transparent vape out of a sequined clutch and handed it to her. She clenched it between her teeth and pulled herself back to upright, girls on both sides helping, hands under her elbows. He took a step back and away rather than towards. He knew enough to keep his distance. A hard-earned lesson and these days he could not ride roughshod over them. It caused problems.

They stood apart from one another and smoked. He studied her, the beautiful hard angles of her face. The planes that beckoned, the flesh that called. Her lips were the most exquisite shade of red, smudged now but glistening still. He wanted to say her name.

Time seemed to still itself and grow quiet between them. The interminable waiting.

Finally, in the thinnest space between the seasons, she turned to the other women and embraced them singly and in groups. They clung to her, limp with their grieving. She kissed each one in turn and then marched towards the car.

He followed. He would follow her forever. Wait for her. Endure it. But now the waiting was over and she was his and his alone again. For a while.

He was close on her heels, just behind her, fingertips tingling with the desire to reach for her.

“You didn’t bring him?” she asked, peering into the windows, looking for the dog to be in the back seat.

“He won’t ride in a car. You’ll see him when we get home.”

This seemed to placate her. He reached past her and opened the door, holding it until she folded herself prettily into the seat. It closed with a kind of hermetic sealing sound. He walked around the front, palm sliding along the hot metal of the hood, reassuring himself and the machine.

Inside, he felt he could breathe, exhaling and inhaling in time to the thrumming of his pulse. Beside him, she rolled down the window, impatiently smashing the electronic button on the armrest in the door. She laid the side of her head on the sill, tilting her face up towards the sky. “Drive,” she told him. “Out of this city, away from all these lights and this smog. Let me look at the stars until the sun rises. Until I can’t see them anymore.”

He could do that. He would do that. For her. He leaned back against the ebony leather, his left hand jaunty on the wheel. With his right hand he reached over and she took it as though it were an anchor, his arm a lifeline tethered to his heart, twining the fingers of both her hands in and out of his. Holding on, waiting to descend.


End file.
